U.S. Pat. No. 4,829,329, to Coon et al, describes disk drives having transducer or head suspension assemblies in which individual load beams, carrying transducers at their distal ends, are attached at their mounting ends to individual arms of an armstack assembly by means of screws or ball swaged fittings. The thrust of the teachings of Coon et al is the reduction in the axial spacing of the disks, in order, by this expedient alone, to increase the volumetric density of recorded data by increasing the number of disks that can be packed in a given volume.
Trends toward smaller disk drives, particularly for applications where portability is a consideration, require drives of smaller form factor, of high data capacity, which are sufficiently rugged to withstand the mechanical shock associated with portability and which are light in weight. Down size scaling of drives, such as that of Coon et al, is not mechanically feasible. A new approach to the mechanical configuration of disk drives is needed to achieve a drive of significantly reduced form factor, providing improved performance in a mechanically abusive environment.